First Time in Forever - Sarah Morgan

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      IT WAS THE perfect place for someone who didn’t want to be found. A dream destination for people who loved the sea.

      Emily Donovan hated the sea.

      She stopped the car at the top of the hill and turned off the headlights. Darkness wrapped itself around her, smothering her like a heavy blanket. She was used to the city, with its shimmering skyline and the dazzle of lights that turned night into day. Here, on this craggy island in coastal Maine, there was only the moon and the stars. No crowds, no car horns, no high-rise buildings. Nothing but wave-pounded cliffs, the shriek of gulls and the smell of the ocean.

      She would have drugged herself on the short ferry crossing if it hadn’t been for the child strapped into the seat in the back of the car.

      The little girl’s eyes were still closed, her head tilted to one side and her arms locked in a stranglehold around a battered teddy bear. Emily retrieved her phone and opened the car door quietly.

       Please don’t wake up.

      She walked a few steps away from the car and dialed. The call went to voice mail.

      “Brittany? Hope you’re having a good time in Greece. Just wanted to let you know I’ve arrived. Thanks again for letting me use the cottage. I’m really … I’m—” Grateful. That was the word she was looking for. Grateful. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “I’m panicking. What the hell am I doing here? There’s water everywhere and I hate water. This is— Well, it’s hard.” She glanced toward the sleeping child and lowered her voice. “She wanted to get out of the car on the ferry, but I kept her strapped in because there was no way I was doing that. That scary harbor guy with the big eyebrows probably thinks I’m insane, by the way, so you’d better pretend you don’t know me next time you’re home. I’ll stay until tomorrow because there’s no choice, but then I’m taking the first ferry out of here. I’m going somewhere else. Somewhere landlocked like … like … Wyoming or Nebraska.”

      As she ended the call the breeze lifted her hair, and she could smell salt and sea in the air.

      She dialed again, a different number this time, and felt a rush of relief as the call was answered and she heard Skylar’s breathy voice.

      “Skylar Tempest.”

      “Sky? It’s me.”

      “Em? What’s happening? This isn’t your number.”

      “I changed my cell phone.”

      “You’re worried someone might trace the call? Holy crap, this is exciting.”

      “It’s not exciting. It’s a nightmare.”

      “How are you feeling?”

      “Like I want to throw up, but I know I won’t because I haven’t eaten for two days. The only thing in my stomach is a knot of nervous tension.”

      “Have the press tracked you down?”

      “I don’t think so. I paid cash for everything and drove from New York.” She glanced back at the road, but there was only darkness. “How do people live like this? I feel like a criminal. I’ve never hidden from anyone in my life before.”

      “Have you been switching cars to confuse them? Did you dye your hair purple and buy a pair of glasses?”

      “No. Have you been drinking?”

      “I watch a lot of movies. You can’t trust anyone. You need a disguise. Something that will help you blend in.”

      “I will never blend in anywhere with a coastline. I’ll be the one wearing a life jacket in the middle of Main Street.”

      “You’re going to be fine.” Skylar’s extrafirm tone suggested she wasn’t at all convinced by what she was saying.

      “I’m leaving first thing tomorrow.”

      “You can’t do that! We agreed the cottage would be the safest place to hide. No one is going to notice you on an island crowded with tourists. It’s a dream place for a vacation.”

      “It’s not a dream place when the sight of water makes you hyperventilate.”

      “You’re not going to do that. You’re going to breathe in the sea air and relax.”

      “I don’t need to be here. This whole thing is an overreaction. No one is looking for me.”

      “You’re the half sister of one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood, and you’re guardian to her child. If that little fact gets out, the whole press pack will be hunting you. You need somewhere to hide, and Puffin Island is perfect.”

      Emily shivered under a cold drench of panic. “Why would they know about me? Lana spent her entire life pretending I don’t exist.” And that had suited her perfectly. At no point had she aspired to be caught in the beam of Lana’s spotlight. Emily was fiercely private. Lana, on the other hand, had demanded attention from the day she was born.

      It occurred to Emily that her half sister would have enjoyed the fact she was still making headlines even though it had been over a month since the plane crash that had killed her and the man reputed to have been her lover.

      “Journalists can find out anything. This is like a plot for a movie.”

      “No, it isn’t! It’s my life. I don’t want it ripped open and exposed for the world to see and I don’t—” Emily broke off and then said the words aloud for the first time. “I don’t want to be responsible for a child.” Memories from the past drifted from the dark corners of her brain like smoke under a closed door. “I can’t be.”

      It wasn’t fair to the girl.

      And it wasn’t fair to her.

      Why had Lana done this to her? Was it malice? Lack of thought? Some twisted desire to seek revenge for a childhood where they’d shared nothing except living space?

      “I know you think that, and I understand your reasons, but you can do this. You have to. Right now you’re all she has.”

      “I shouldn’t be all anyone has. That’s a raw deal. I shouldn’t be looking after a child for five minutes, let alone the whole summer.”

      No matter that in her old life people deferred to her, recognized her expertise and valued her judgment; in this she was incompetent. She had no qualifications that equipped her for this role. Her childhood had been about surviving. About learning to nurture herself and protect herself while she lived with a mother who was mostly absent—sometimes physically, always emotionally. And after she’d left home, her life had been about studying and working long, punishing hours to silence men determined to prove she was less than they were.

      And now here she was, thrown into a life where what she’d learned counted for nothing. A life that required the one set of skills she knew she didn’t possess. She didn’t know how to be this. She didn’t know how to do this. And she’d never had ambitions to do it. It felt like an injustice to find herself in a situation she’d worked hard to avoid all her life.

      Beads of sweat formed on her forehead, and she heard Skylar’s voice through a mist of anxiety.

      “If having her stops you thinking that, this will turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to you. You weren’t to blame for what happened when you were a child, Em.”

      “I don’t want to talk about it.”

      “Doesn’t change the fact you weren’t to blame. And you don’t need to talk about it because the way you feel is evident in the way you’ve chosen to live your life.”

      Emily glanced back at the child sleeping in the car.

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